New chief for NJ securities law will regulate industry in turmoil

Marc Minor has spent years accumulating trinkets and mementos from the jobs he's held.

But two weeks into his new post as chief of New Jersey's Securities Bureau, he's only unpacked one item: a bronze statue of a bull and a bear -- the twin symbols of the stock market's rise and fall -- wrestling with each other.

Amanda Brown/The Star-LedgerMarc Minor is the new head of the state's Securities Bureau.

"It may be difficult to tell who's winning," Minor joked. "Some days it's clearer than others."

It's Minor's job to referee that fight. As the state's new top cop for securities law, he is responsible for regulating an industry in historic turmoil.

Minor, a low-key jazz lover who carefully chooses his words, describes the situation as "a unique point in history."

With many Americans clamoring for increased regulation, he sees an opportunity for his bureau to step up to the plate.

"I feel a sense of urgency," said Minor, 41 of South Orange. "I know that common, everyday investors feel aggrieved. ... I feel that's why we are here."

Although the bureau -- which is responsible for registering brokers and ferreting out fraud -- has faced cuts, Minor said it should play a more high-profile role. In addition to probing illegal activity, he hopes to teach investors how to spot scams -- before they become victims.

Minor, whose first goal was to be an investigative reporter, brings a criminal justice background to the otherwise staid world of financial regulation.

The son of a postal inspector and nurse who raised him in Maryland near Washington, Minor started his legal career in the criminal division of the Ohio attorney general's office.

In 2002, Minor went to New York, where he became an assistant state attorney general working on financial cases. He said it was the perfect marriage of criminal and corporate law.

"You just have this epiphany," Minor said. "I really found my passion there."

Working under Eliot Spitzer, Minor participated in a landmark 2003 investigation into illegal mutual fund practices, where certain investors were given unfair advantages.

Minor's last stop before starting his current job on April 6 was the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the country's largest independent regulator. Jim Shorris, the authority's executive director for enforcement, said Minor was a mentor to younger lawyers and never became a "table pounder."

"He can afford to be soft-spoken, because he knows what he's talking about," he said.

Attorney General Anne Milgram said Minor's wide-ranging experience made him the right choice for the job.

"Very few folks that we came across had this depth of background," she said.

Milgram, much like New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, has been targeting Wall Street firms. In his new position, Minor will play a leading role in two of the state's most visible investigations, into Lehman Brothers executives and AIG bonus payments. The state lost a total of $281 million to the companies.

Minor's job is even trickier because the rules are being rewritten in Washington at the same time he is trying to enforce them in New Jersey.

Kristin Johnson, a professor of securities law at Seton Hall University, said most securities enforcement still happens at the federal level, but public outrage has sparked more activity among states.

"The federal government doesn't have the breadth and depth of resources to be physically present on a local level," she said.

Minor, who lives with his wife, Kimberly, a retail consultant, and their two young sons, has a personal project outside work: digitizing his entire vinyl jazz collection.

Although few would connect the two, Minor's love of jazz and securities law are interwoven.

"The thing I love the most about jazz is that there are infinite possibilities for people who are very good at innovation," he said. "The market, in general, tends to reward innovation. The products are always changing."

Some of those products can destroy an investor's life savings. In March, the state filed charges against a Ponzi scheme in which 80 people lost a combined $15 million.

Deputy Bureau Chief Amy Kopleton said the recession makes it harder for scam artists to hide their illegal practices.

"With the market downturn, a lot of the Ponzi schemes are now bubbling to the top," she said. "It's made us very busy."

Meanwhile, the bureau has been losing staff, making the recession-driven workload even more difficult. The bureau has 39 employees after losing 11 last year. During the budget year that ended in mid-2007, it handled 58 special investigations; now it expects to supervise only 35.

Nonetheless, Minor wants the bureau to boost its role as a resource for the public.

With so much turmoil in the stock market, Minor is worried investors are turning to disreputable "dark little corners of the market." To prevent that, he wants the bureau to play a lead role in teaching people about safe investing.

"Some of them have been taken advantage of," Minor said. "They're hungry for information."